From start to finish, the entire episode had taken less than four minutes.
It was a blessing no one outside the immediate area had been affected. According to Scout, no one on the upper level had even been aware of the attack until security had informed her and Payne that police were on their way, as well as an ambulance for the unhinged woman. Even now, the incident was being kept on the downlow for the sake of both the House’s clientele, and their talented, temperamental tattooists.
This last part had Alice at odds with herself in the strangest way. As she helped Scout pull slivers of glass from her upper arm, she tried to sort her chaotic self out.
On the one hand, she was desperately relieved Loki and the other artists hadn’t been disturbed by what had happened downstairs. Not to mention the professional side of her was pleased she’d done all she could to minimize the danger to both Chantal and the gift shop’s patrons, even though that wasn’t technically in her job description. The proof of how well she’d done her job was that no part of the House beyond the gift shop had been disturbed.
That was the professional side of her.
But the injured, terrified woman side of her needed to feel the protective security of Loki’s strong arms around her.
Weird.
Especially since they’d practically been polite strangers to each other for weeks on end.
She had to be in shock or something, she told herself, wincing as Scout pressed another bandage into place. From the time she’d been orphaned, Alice had prided herself in not needing anyone. And needing to be held? Pffft. Not since she was a child had she ever needed to be held. Not once. Not ever.
But…
She needed Loki now.
Not wanted.
Needed.
Then again, maybe she was concussed. The lump on the side of her head where the beer mug had struck her, as well her left cheek where the woman’s punch hand landed, throbbed out a rhythm of abject misery. If she looked half as bad as she felt, Alice figured she had to resemble a lumpy-headed, blood-covered gargoyle.
Maybe it was a good thing Loki couldn’t see her now.
With that in mind, Alice shifted uncomfortably. “I’m fine, Payne.” Please stop telling people to look at me and my lumpy-headed gargoyle-ness.
“I’m still not convinced you’re fine.” From his place beside Scout, Luke Keyes watched her more closely than ever, and she didn’t know what to make of it. When he was playing mind games with her, he always did it with a grin, as if he wanted her to know he was toying with her the way a cat toyed with a mouse. To see him looking downright worried freaked her the hell out. “On the way back from getting more bandages, I managed to take a quick look at the gift shop security footage. Gotta say, Alice, you took some serious knocks from someone who was in the grips of a psychotic episode.”
“No kidding,” she mumbled, losing count of how many places she hurt. “That lady was a lot stronger than she looked.”
“I’m not surprised. People who are that broken off from reality are incredibly powerful, mainly because they don’t have the empathy that unconsciously holds the majority of us human beings back. They’re just balls of pure, unmitigated violence, and therefore extremely dangerous.”
“You don’t have to convince me of that.” Gingerly she raised her bandaged fingers to probe the throbbing place where cheek met jaw. “How awful do I look? Is it bad? Like, paper-bag-over-my-head kind of bad?”
“Gee, I don’t know,” Payne cut in bluntly, glaring daggers at the people seated at the conference table with him. “Turn around and fucking look at my employee, someone who should’ve been safe under my roof. See how she’s ripped to fucking shreds, and you tell her how she looks. Go on, do it.”
This time Alice couldn’t stop the cringe as Payne once again made her the center of attention.
Gee, thanks, Payne. You’re a pal.
While the lawyer dutifully turned to look at her once more, the silver-haired man sitting beside him didn’t move a muscle, keeping his face averted. Nevertheless, Alice knew what the older gentleman looked like, as did just about every Chicagoan. Richardson Womack, famous financier and host of the National Financial News network’s popular show, Womack’s Money, sat so still it was like he’d turned to stone. The woman who had attacked her was Richardson Womack’s daughter, Annalise, once touted as a wild child of Chicago’s social elites, but Alice couldn’t recall hearing anything about her for a few years.
Knowing her attacker was Annalise Womack answered one question, at least.
That fab Burberry coat had been the real deal.
Calmly, the lawyer fished out another piece of paper from his briefcase and again slid it across the table. “If you’d take the time to read through this document, Mr. Payne, you’ll be happy to note that the NDA also generously provides any medical compensation for possible victims of circumstance—”
“Oh, no, you don’t, slick,” Payne snarled, and Alice was alarmed by the raw savagery of it. “Don’t you dare try to bullshit me. This was no fucking circumstance, and my employee wasn’t a possible victim. She’s a definite victim of fucking whacked-out violence, violence that would’ve happened to my customers if she hadn’t had the wherewithal to direct another one of my employees—who, by the way, is in my manager’s office in goddamn hysterics—to get everyone out of that shop while she drew the fire. So don’t you even think about pissing on what I know are the facts and call it a spring shower.”
“Hear, hear,” Scout muttered, tossing the last Band-Aid wrapper into the waste basket Luke had moved over to where they sat.
The lawyer sighed. “Mr. Payne—”
Without warning, the double doors to Payne’s office exploded open. Loki was suddenly there, his towering fury flooding the office while another security agent by the name of Forge trailed him like a shadow.
“He went down to visit Alice in the gift shop and saw all the blood and destruction,” Forge announced bluntly to Luke, who came to his feet as if he had half a mind to tackle Loki. “I told him we had things in hand, but—”
“Alice. Baby.” With eyes burning more fiercely than she’d ever seen them, Loki reached down to where she sat and hauled her into his arms, only to loosen his hold when he felt her flinch. “Where does it hurt?”
“You’re here now. Nothing hurts anymore.” The words were out before she gave them a thought, but she didn’t care. They were the truth. After what seemed like forever, she was finally back in his arms, and it was better than any heaven she’d ever imagined. The wall that had separated her from him and the rest of the world vanished, and all she could feel was the beauty of finally being not just safe, but where she belonged.
Scout also came to her feet. “Don’t worry about the rest of your shift, Loki. Go home and take care of Alice. You can have tomorrow off, too, so you can keep an eye on her. Just look at this as a four-day weekend.”
“Who did this?” Loki demanded, and Alice genuinely feared he was a heartbeat away from ripping the House apart so he could find someone to murder. “Was this because of that Felix fuckface?”
“It was just some random woman who was off her meds.” Alice tightened her arms around him, in case he wanted to hunt the poor woman down. “I followed protocols—I didn’t touch her and called for support. Unfortunately, this woman was able to do a ton of damage before security was able to get there, but thankfully that damage was just to me and the shop. Chantal was able to get about a dozen or so shoppers out of there, so no one else got hurt.”